Dear reader, 

These are the latest news and especially action points with regard to the humanitarian situation in Tigray. 

1.       Food aid suspension by WFP and famine in Tigray 

The food aid is still suspended by WFP and USAID and famine further develops in Tigray, now that we are reaching the lean season. Except that fighting has stopped, people in Tigray do not see much positive changes since the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. After two war years without salaries, many people continue to work without wages… And USAID and WFP stopped all food aid, thereby punishing the victims of the aid theft, rather than the culprits! After all these months, no comprehensive report was published and no corrective measures taken. And people are let to starve. Many media and opinion pieces now address the issue. 

• Addis Standard, 29 June 2023: Tragedy strikes Abiy Addi IDP Camp as hunger claims hundreds of lives in Tigray, thousands remain in peril 
• The Guardian, 29 June 2023: ‘We blame government and aid agencies’: food relief thefts in Ethiopia leave those in need with nothing 
• Tghat, 7 June 2023: Photojournalist Ximena Borrazás on harrowing stories of rape and starvation in Tigray (video). 
• Davide Tommasin, 15 June 2023: Etiopia, lo scandalo del dirottamento e blocco alimentare umanitario per milioni di persone in Tigray (in Italian) (Ethiopia, the scandal of the hijacking and humanitarian food blockade for millions of people in Tigray) 
• Africa News, 23 June 2023: Ethiopia: Famine threatens Tigray after food aid suspension 
• Duke Burbridge: Aid suspension threatens millions of Ethiopian lives (Ethiopia Insight) 
• Halefay, 23 June 2023: Abune Tesfaselassie Medihin, a Bishop of Adigrat Eparchy wrote a plea to USAID and WFP to avert the decision which brings death of the poor and to the needy 
• The New Humanitarian, 22 June 2023: USAID/WFP food aid freeze leads to suffering and deaths in Tigray 
• Reuters, 19 June 2023: WFP hopes to resume some Ethiopia food aid distribution by July 
• Aciafrica, 25 June 2023: “Death sentence upon those trying to survive”: Bishop on Food Aid Suspension in Ethiopia 
• AFP, 22 June 2023. Ethiopie: le Tigré crie famine après la suspension de l'aide alimentaire  [in French]. (Hunger devastates Ethiopia's Tigray as food aid haltedaf) 
• Associated Press, 21 June 2023: Once starved by war, millions of Ethiopians go hungry again as US, UN pause aid after massive theft 
• News Central TV (Nigeria), 20 June 2023: Ethiopia Conflict: “All Stakeholders Are Complicit In The Allegations Of Humanitarian Aid Diversion” 
• El Pais, 10 June 2023: La artillería silenciosa del hambre en Tigray [in Spanish] (the silent artillery of famine in Tigray – photo report). 
• Associated Press, 27 June 2023: Hunger kills hundreds after US and UN pause food aid to Ethiopia’s Tigray region, officials say 
• Addis Standard, 14 June 2023: Newborn mortality rising in Tigray’s Seharti Samre district, officials urge nutritional food supplies 
• Tigrai Television, 14 June 2023: Farmers in Eastern Tigray Suffer from Lack of Agricultural Inputs 

2.       New book 

Rita Kahsay, Rowena Kahsay, Sally Keeble, 2023. In Plain Sight: Sexual violence in the Tigray conflict. Kindle and Paperback versions for sale on Amazon. 

3.       Appeal to extend the mandate of the International Commission on Human Rights and Enquiry into Ethiopia (ICHREE) 

Campaign by Legacy Tigray to send messages to the UN HRC member missions to lobby for the extension of ICHREE’s mandate after September.https://twitter.com/LegacyTigray/status/1673374036296974353  

4.       AGU23 session: Advances in Earth Observation and Monitoring Impact of Armed Conflict on Ecosystem Services 

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) fall meeting is one of the largest international conference of  earth scientists. This year, our friends Liya Weldegebriel (Stanford), Emnet Negash (UGent) and colleagues from the Conflict and Environment Observatory as well as the University of California Berkeley organise a session on “Advances in Earth Observation and Monitoring Impact of Armed Conflict on Ecosystem Services”. To say it in layman’s words: the use of satellite imagery to capture the impact of wars on the environment. Read it here:  https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm23/prelim.cgi/Session/188200 (and possibly submit your abstract) 

5.       Full recording of "The Effects of War on Higher Education in Ethiopia" round table, hosted by Prof. Michael Gervers (University of Toronto) 

From the University of Toronto website: 

On 22 November 2022 the Department of Historical and Cultural Studies (HCS) at the University of Toronto Scarborough sponsored a round table webinar entitled “The Effects of War on Higher Education in Ethiopia.” The objective of this round table, and now the video recording thereof, is to inform the University of Toronto community, Canadians, and scholars and the public elsewhere, of the destruction of Ethiopia’s contemporary system of higher education and its ancient cultural heritage. The devastation has come about as a consequence of the two-year-old war perpetrated by the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments against the nearly 6-million inhabitants of the Tigray region in the country’s north. Following the start of the engagement on 4 November 2020, the Federal government closed Tigray’s four universities, interrupted all levels of education across the region, and cut the entire population off from banking and communication services. It also disconnected the electrical supply, destroyed the agricultural and industrial sectors, and prevented food provided by humanitarian agencies from entering the region. The universities have been ransacked and their removeable infrastructure looted. Civilians everywhere have been, and continue to be targeted, especially in extensive parts of Tigray currently occupied by the Eritrean army. There have been horrendous massacres and, on 13 September 2022, the Business Campus of Mekelle University was bombed in a government-sponsored drone attack intended further to intimidate simultaneously both the educational and civilian sectors. Meanwhile, the many Ethiopian universities outside Tigray, including Addis Ababa University (founded in the 1950s by Canadian Jesuits) contributed over USD $5 million towards the government’s war effort against Tigray. 

The Ethiopian Minister of Education, H.E. Professor Berhanu Nega, and the president of Addis Ababa University, Professor Tassew Woldehanna were invited to participate in the round table, but did not respond to the invitation. Professor Menegesha Ayene, president of Wollo University, volunteered to participate, but did not attend. 

Full recording is also directly available on YouTube, with subtitles.  

Part I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLZLXTM6hvk (Nathalie Rothman, Patrick Wight, Alexie Tcheuyap, Richard Reid, Kindeya Gebrehiwot, Jan Nyssen, Goitom Tegegn) 

Part II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFmaorMLBws&t=18s (Hagos Abraham, Wolbert Smidt, Goitom Admasu, Patrick Wight) 

6.       Other media and opinion pieces 

• Bisrat AFT, Mekelle University, College of Health Sciences: Two years after the Togogwa airstrike – eyewitness photo report; June 22, 2021 (Twitter thread) 
• Ewelina Ochab: Tigrayans Continue To Be Targeted In Ethiopia Despite The Ceasefire (Forbes) 
• Kjetil Tronvoll & Mehari Tadelle Maru: A hobbled transition: The intractable task of Tigray Interim Administration (Addis Standard) 
• Luminos Fund & Tigray Education Bureau: Study of the learning loss and psychosocial well-being of students, teachers and parents in the Tigray War 
• Addis Standard, 13 June 2023: Ethiopia’s wars devour more than $28 b in economic loss, damages; $20 b needed for reconstruction 
• Addis Standard, 13 June 2023: Election board declines new request for TPLF as regional party 
• Al Jazeera, 13 June 2023: Fate of jailed fighters still unknown months after Ethiopia truce 

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